social media
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00_FUCHS_3E_FM.indd 1 12/21/2020 3:31:36 PM ‘In the fast-changing world of social media, it is imperative to have a text that changes with the times. With several new chapters covering Big Data, Trump, the challenge from China, platform capitalism and more, this thoroughly revised third edition of Social Media does just that, even as it retains a strong commitment to critical theory, democratic values, and digital activism.’ Vincent Mosco, author of The Smart City in a Digital World
00_FUCHS_3E_FM.indd 2 12/21/2020 3:31:36 PM Christian fuchs social
me a criticaldia introduction third edition
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00_FUCHS_3E_FM.indd 3 12/21/2020 3:31:37 PM SAGE Publications Ltd © Christian Fuchs, 2021 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road First edition published 2014. Reprinted twice 2014. London EC1Y 1SP Reprinted twice 2015
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00_FUCHS_3E_FM.indd 4 12/21/2020 3:31:37 PM INFLUENCER CAPITALISM: REIFIED 7 CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE AGE OF INSTAGRAM, YOUTUBE, AND SNAPCHAT
KEY QUESTIONS What is a social media influencer? How does influencer capitalism’s political economy work on Instagram and YouTube? Who are the winners and losers in influencer capitalism? Why is influencer capitalism ideological? What are the potentials of socialist influencers? How does socialist influencing differ from influencer capitalism?
KEY CONCEPTS Influencer Reified consciousness Influencer capitalism Ideology Culture industry Socialist influencers
7.1 OVERVIEW Footballer Cristiano Renaldo, musician Ariana Grande, and professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson are among the individuals who have the highest number of followers on Instagram. They are well-known, prominent public figures. They are celebrities. But celebrities are undergoing changes in the age of digital capitalism and social media. In this chapter we are looking at some of these changes.
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The emergence of celebrities as popular culture has to do with the capitalist culture indus- try that commodifies culture and with secularisation in modern societies where individuals are seeking worldly substitutes for worship (Rojek 2001, 13). We can add that fandom and celebrities are also enabled by individuals’ search for happiness in an unhappy, alienated world. Celebrity is the expression of humans being happy and recognised in a world where there are inequalities of power and a lack of recognition. The celebrity phenomenon is fans’ desire for social recognition. Fandom and celebrities to a certain degree also have to do with sexual desire. Celebrities are older than the culture industry and capitalism. Rojek (30) argues that Alexander the Great (356 BC–323 BC) was one of the first celebrities. In the twentieth century, celebrity and fan culture took place in the context of mass media (film, recorded music, television, radio) and reality TV. In the twenty-first century we have seen the emergence of Internet celebri- ties, which includes both traditional celebrities who become famous outside the Internet and have a presence on social media as well as influencers whose fame is ascribed to online fan communities that turn certain users into celebrities. Influencers are a type of Internet celeb- rity. They are “vocational, sustained, and highly branded social media stars” who are able to “attract and maintain a sizable following on their social media platforms” (Abidin 2018, 71). Many influencers use multiple platforms such as Facebook’s photo-sharing platform Instagram, Google/Alphabet’s YouTube, Snapchat, live streaming platforms such as Twitch (Amazon) and Periscope (Twitter), crowdfunding platforms such as Patreon, Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. What Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitch – platforms that are particularly popular among influencers – have in common is that they are manifestations of what Leaver, Highfield, and Abidin (2020, 216) call visual social media cultures: “The attention economy is primarily visual today, and Instagram remains synonymous with the visual zeitgeist.” What all of the different types of twentieth- and twenty-first-century celebrities have in common is that they are not self-made, but phenomena that exist in and through the capitalist culture industry. Most celebrities are supported, presented, mediated, and paid for by capital- ist companies that sell entertainment, lifestyles, brands, or ads. The celebrity industry manu- factures celebrities (Turner 2014). Celebrity “corresponds to the growth of capitalist relations of production and their implantation onto the sphere of cultural production” (Williamson 2016, 154) and is “a form of fame commensurate with capitalist society” (1). Celebrity is a cultural dimension of capitalism. YouTube is the world’s second most accessed Internet platform, and Instagram is the 28th most used one.1 Google/Alphabet owns YouTube. Instagram is part of Facebook’s empire. YouTube and Instagram are part of Google and Facebook’s duopoly of online advertising. They make significant contributions to the profits of these two global Internet giants. Snapchat is a multimedia app operated by the Californian company Snap Inc. It was founded in 2011. On Snapchat, one can share pictures and short videos that are up to ten seconds long with followers. These “snaps” are presented to them for a chosen time period, between one and ten seconds. A story is made up of a number of snaps. Any story disappears from a user profile after 24 hours. Snapchat lives through and practises the culture of speed,
1 http://alexa.com/topsites, Alexa Top 500 Sites on the Web, accessed on 6 October 2019.
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superficiality, and ephemerality that is typical for contemporary capitalism. In 2017, Snap Inc. became a publicly traded company. As with most other social media platforms, targeted adver- tising is Snapchat’s capital accumulation model. At the time of writing this chapter, Snapchat had not made any profits. Its total losses were US$ 459 million in 2016, US$ 3.4 billion in 2017, US$ 1.3 billion in 2018, and US$ 1.0 billion in 2019.2 Platforms that design high speed and short attention span into their platforms have more problems generating ad profits than other platforms. The future will show when and whether Snapchat becomes profitable. Snapchat is popular among young people (eMarketer 2018; Pew Research Center 2019). YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are significant not just in terms of the appeal they have for young people but in another respect too. They are the paradigmatic platforms of influencer capitalism. In a 2019 survey, one-third of US and UK children aged between 8 and 12 answered that they wanted to become vloggers/YouTubers (Berger 2019). In the Future Shopper 2019 Survey, “[m]ore than half (55%) of our […] survey participants [aged 6–16, N=4,003] told us they would want to purchase a product if they saw their favourite Instagram or YouTube star wearing or using it” (Cox 2019). In the age group of 12–15 year-old British YouTube users, 52 percent followed YouTube influencers in 2017 (Ofcom 2018, 6). Influencer capitalism is not a type of capitalism but an ideology that claims that by being active on social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube there are great opportunities for becoming wealthy and famous. Influencer capitalism is the dream, fantasy, and desire of users to become celebrities that accumulate a wealth of social relations, money, influence, likes, positive comments, etc. Influencer capitalism is the online manifestation of the American Dream’s ideological claim that in capitalism everyone has an equal opportunity to make a career, from a dishwasher to a billionaire, by having a good idea and believing in themselves. While the USA is often depicted as the “land of opportunities”, the gurus of neoliberal Internet individualism present Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube as the online spaces of opportunities. This chapter provides an analysis of the foundations of influencer capitalism. It shows that becoming a famous influencer is not by chance, but due to the capitalist operations of talent agencies, media companies, venture capitalists, and advertisers. Section 7.2 discusses influencer capitalism’s political economy. Section 7.3 analyses the ideology of influencer capitalism. Section 7.4 explores some of the problems associated with influencer capitalism. Section 7.5 asks whether or not there can be alternatives to capitalist influencers, namely socialist influencers. Section 7.6 draws conclusions.
7.2 INFLUENCER CAPITALISM’S POLITICAL ECONOMY Instagram’s and YouTube’s Mainstream Among the top 20 most followed Instagram accounts, we find companies (Instagram, National Geographic, Nike), footballers and sports stars (Cristiano Renaldo, The Rock, Lionel Messi,
2 Data source: Snap Inc., annual financial report for years 2018 and 2019, SEC filings form 10-K.
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Neymar), musicians (Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry), and actors and reality TV starlets (Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner, Khloé Kardashian).3 The Instagram fame of the top Instagram celebrities has to do with their work for sports companies (Juventus Football Club, WWE, FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain FC) and media and entertainment corporations (Universal Music Group, NBCUniveral/Comcast, Sony Music). Some of the top Instagram profiles are themselves media or fashion corporations (Instagram, National Geographic, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, Nike Inc.). On YouTube, the 20 most followed profiles are maintained by record labels (T-Series, KondZilla Records, Universal Records/Vivendi, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Warner Music Group, Monstercat Media), sports entertainment companies (WWE, Dude Perfect), and entertainment companies (Treasure Studio Inc., Channel Federator, Sony, Badabun Network).4 Behind Instagram and YouTube influencers stand large for-profit corporations that sell and profit from commodities such as music, sports events, advertisements, and fashion. Such companies invest capital into the online presences of particular artists and brands in order to accumulate capital online and offline.
Social Media Influencers Among the top 20 most subscribed YouTube channels there are two profiles that are not owned and run by large corporations: PewDiePie and HolaSoyGerman/JuegaGerman. PewDiePie is Swedish YouTuber Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, who features comedy, game-comments, and music on his channel. Germán Alejandro Garmendia Aranis is a Swedish YouTuber who maintains the two channels HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman, where he comments on games and presents comedy. YouTubers and Instagrammers did not become famous through music, movies, television, or sports, but on YouTube or Instagram. They are so-called “influ- encers”, online celebrities who create content that is distributed on digital platforms and who have a significantly sized fan community who feel emotionally attached to the influencers and follow and regularly engage with the latter’s content by liking, commenting, or pur- chasing branded commodities advertised on the influencers’ channels and pages. Influencers “have fame that is native to social media, such as the YouTube star or highly followed Twitter user, and exist within many interest groups and subcultures besides cult and genre fandom” (Marwick 2016, 338). Influencers spend many hours a day creating online content, building and maintaining their online selves, and engaging with their Internet fan base. Influencing is not a status but a process and set of practices (Marwick 2016). Many online influencers are not just earning a living online, but are quite wealthy. They turn themselves into brands that are constantly marketed online. Other labels commonly used for “influencers” are “Internet celebs”, “micro- celebrities”, “creators”, “celebrity endorsers”, or “social media/Internet stars”. In influencer
3 Data source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Instagram_accounts, accessed on 6 October 2019, 4 Data source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-subscribed_YouTube_channels#cite_note- 17, accessed on 5 May 2020.
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capitalism, the accumulation of visibility, content, clicks, likes, followers, and comments translates into economic capital. The small number of those who are able to amass visibility and attention can become rich and famous, whereas many others who try or desire to be famous will fail and remain proletarianised platform workers and influencers trying to earn a living online but ending up as precarious freelancers. Proletarian is another word for a member of the working class. The term became famous in Marx and Engels’ battle-call “Proletarians of all Lands, Unite!” in the Communist Manifesto. In the age of Instagram, labour has changed. Internet workers try to earn a living online. Some of them do so by making use of Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms. But only a few of them become rich and famous celebrities. The majority of them remain rather unknown and have limited income. They are digital proletarians. Proletarian (want-to-be) influencers often promote or relate to brands for free, which means they conduct unpaid dig- ital labour in order “to build up their portfolios and in the hope of being spotted by potential sponsors” (Leaver et al. 2020, 115). As with traditional celebrities, there are network effects in the creation and growth of online influencer fan communities (Adler 2006; Budzinski and Gaenssle 2018). Fans like to be part of a large community of like-minded individuals with whom they share the same interests and with whom they can communicate about their joint interests. On social media platforms, there is, in comparison to traditional media such as television, radio, and magazines, an increased and almost constant visibility not just of stars but also of fans of each other. Other YouTubers and Instagrammers who have millions of followers are, for exam- ple, Lele Pons (Instagram rank #50, YouTube rank #210), DanTDM (YT #95), Ryan ToysReview (YT #100), Logan Paul (I #218, YT #120) Jake Paul (I #349, YT #126), Dan Bilzerian (Instagram #81), Zach King (I #135, YT #1,929), Liza Koshy (I #188, YT #500), James Charles (I #233, YT #185), Nikkie de Jager (I #379, YT #379), Kayla Itsines (I #381, YT #52,052), Zoella (I #11,122, YT #357), Lilly Singh (I #662, YT #219), Negin Mirsalehi (I #1355), Julie Sariñana (I #1306), Andrea Russet (#1,696), and Lily Maymac (I #1,964).5 They are gamers, models, fashion artists, actors, dancers, singers, comedians, sportspersons, fitness gurus/trainers, cooks, etc. And above all they are not simply Internet celebrities, but advertising performers. In 2018, the YouTube stars with the highest earnings were toy unboxer Ryan (Ryan ToysReviews) with US$ 22 million and Jake Paul with US$ 21.5 million.6
PewDiePie In 2018, PewDiePie earned US$ 15.5 million via his YouTube channel.7 Kjellberg, born in 1989, started his YouTube channel in 2006. He started publishing video comments on games such as Minecraft. He was first signed to US entertainment company Machinima
5 Data sources: https://socialblade.com/instagram/top/100/followers, https://socialblade.com/youtube/ top/500, accessed on 6 October 2019. See also https://mediakix.com/blog/top-instagram-influencers/. 6 Robehmed and Berg (2018). 7 Ibid.
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Inc., a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. The company published videos about video games on machinima.com and on a YouTube channel.
In 2012, Kjellberg signed a contract with Maker Studios, a digital media com- pany that represents talent across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Vine. (The deal that got Kjellberg out of the hot dog stand ended due to a ‘lack of communication’). His channel quickly grew from 100 million views per month to over 200 million, according to Maker’s former CEO Danny Zappin, who brought Kjellberg aboard. Maker set up an official PewDiePie website, app and online store to sell Bro Army merchandise. In return, Kjellberg helps pro- mote Maker’s dedicated video gaming channel, Polaris, along with some of its other media interests, and gives the company a cut of his YouTube ad revenue. (Parker 2015)
In 2014, Walt Disney acquired Maker Studios. Kjellberg creates a positive mood about the games he presents. He was asked about games he does not like in an interview. “Interviewer: If a game is really bad, do you say so? Kjellberg: No, I try to keep everything relatively posi- tive. I don’t want people to feel like shit because of me” (Lindh 2014). This positivist attitude is important because Kjellberg acts as a marketer who wants to attract clients who pay him. And advertisers don’t like risk and negative publicity.
Logan Paul and Jake Paul Logan Paul, born in 1985, started his social media presence on the Twitter-owned video platform Vine. In 2013 he started his YouTube channel, where he presents comedy and short films. In 2018 he was worth US$ 14.5 million, the 10th highest earning YouTuber.8 Paul makes money from YouTube ads, branded social media content uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, and his own clothing fashion brand Maverick (Bernucca 2018). He also earns money from acting in shows and films, such as The Thinning (YouTube Red), Foursome (YouTube Red), Law & Order (NBC), Weird Loners (Fox), Stitchers (ABC Family/Freeform), Bizaardvark (Disney Channel), and Walk the Prank (Disney XD) (Naibuzz 2019). In 2015, Paul signed an all-area representation con- tract with Creative Artists Agency (Brouwer 2015), a Californian talent agency created in 1975 that managed/manages artists such as The Jackson Five, Tom Cruise, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Joe Biden.9 Logan’s brother Jake Paul also started on Vine in 2013 and in the same year shifted to YouTube. In 2015, he started acting in the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark. He was fea- tured in the first two episodes. Like his brother Logan, Jake makes money from advertising, branded content, acting, and merchandise products. In 2017, Jake Paul signed a representa- tion contract with talent agency WME (Weiss 2017). Besides Creative Artists Agency, ICM Partners, and United Talent Agency, WME is one of the big Hollywood talent agencies.
8 Ibid. 9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Creative_Artists_Agency_clients
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In 2017, he started teen influencer marketing company Team 10 with support from the cap- ital investment firms Danhua, Horizons Alpha, Vayner Capital, Sound Ventures & A-Grade Investments, and Adam Zeplain. Jake Paul describes Team 10 as a
social media incubator. […] We created the first ever influencer venture capital fund. All of these celebrities go out and raise venture capital funds… these celebrities don’t provide any value beyond their check [but] we can help with social strategy. We have this network of Team 10 that can push all of these products. […] We’ll put in money and then we can help grow your product across all of our talent’s social pages. We believe our dealflow is going to be ridiculous. (Shieber 2017)
This discussion shows that agencies are powerful intermediaries that play a crucial role in influencer capitalism.
Zoe Elisabeth Sugg (Zoella) Zoe Elisabeth Sugg, born in 1990 and also known as Zoella, launched her beauty and fashion vlog channel on YouTube in 2009. Zoella was part of a talent network run by US marketing company StyleHaul that was founded in 2011 and acquired by RTL Group in 2014. In 2013, Zoella signed a contract with talent agency Gleam Futures that was renewed in 2019 (Weiss 2019). In 2014, Zoella made a book deal with Penguin and released her debut novel Girl Online. Several other books followed. Zoella became a brand selling beauty products, perfume, cosmetics, homeware products and the mobile app Filmm. In 2019, Zoella could earn up to US$ 18,800 from one sponsored posting.10 In addition, she earns money from advertising on her website and on her YouTube channel. In 2019, her wealth was estimated to be around £2.5 million (Prasad 2019).
Ryan ToysReviews Ryan ToysReviews is a YouTube channel directed at kids. It was founded in 2015. It features “kidfluencer” Ryan Kaji, born in 2011, and his twin sisters Emma and Kate. The videos show how Ryan and the girls unbox and play with toys. In 2018, Ryan was worth US$ 22 million, the highest earning YouTuber.11 Besides income from ads and sponsorship, Ryan also earns money from a Walmart toy line called “Ryan’s World”,12 Ryan toothbrushes, and Ryan toothpaste. Ryan’s parents have a marketing and merchandise contract with the children’s media company PocketWatch (Spangler 2017). PocketWatch was founded with the help of venture capital from Third Wave Digital, Jon Landau, UTA Ventures, Downey Ventures, and WME. In 2018, the game app “Tag With Ryan”, which is aimed at children, was released. PocketWatch produced the TV series “Ryan’s Mystery Playdate” that premiered in April 2019 on Nick Jr., a children’s pay television channel operated by Nickelodeon.
10 www.hopperhq.com/blog/instagram-rich-list/, accessed on 7 October 2019. 11 Robehmed and Berg (2018). 12 www.walmart.com/browse/toys/ryan-s-world-toys/4171_3438149_5568688.
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Ryan ToysReview has been criticised. The basic criticism is that the channel tries to manipulate children into becoming consumer junkies who do not realise that they are con- stantly confronted with hidden ads while watching YouTube:
Can young viewers tell the difference between advertisements and product reviews on the popular YouTube channel Ryan ToysReview? The watchdog group Truth in Advertising says no. On Wednesday it filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing the channel’s administrators of deceiving children through ‘sponsored videos that often have the look and feel of organic content’. […] Nearly 90 percent of the Ryan ToysReview videos have included at least one paid product recommendation aimed at preschoolers, a group too young to distinguish between a commercial and a review, Truth in Advertising argued in its complaint. The channel’s sponsors have included Walmart, Hasbro, Netflix, Chuck E. Cheese and Nickelodeon, according to Truth in Advertising. Many children do not recognize advertising until they are 8 or 9 years old, said Josh Golin, the executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. […] Last month, several senators asked the commission to inves- tigate Ryan ToysReview, which they said had posted two commercials for the fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. without disclosing that they were ads. (Hsu 2019)
The example cases of Instagram and YouTube influencers show that Internet influencing is a capitalist business. Becoming a famous influencer is not chance but due to the capitalist operations of talent agencies, media companies, venture capitalists, and advertisers. Virtual influencers are “CGI or virtual celebrities who do not have a physical form at all, but are created, crafted, narrated and managed to promote or sell a particular message or brand” (Leaver et al. 2020, 200). Lil Miquela is an example of a virtual Instagram influencer. Created in 2016, @lilmiquela had 1.8 million followers on Instagram in January 2020.13 Lil Miquela promoted brands such as Calvin Klein and Prada. She also has released music songs such as “Not Mine”, “Automatic”, “Money”, and “Wasted” that have achieved millions of views on YouTube.
Snapchat Influencers Snapchat does not release data on followers. Many popular YouTube and Instagram influ- encers have channels on Snapchat that users can subscribe to: Lele Pons, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, Dan Bilzerian, Liza Koshy, James Charles, Zoella, or Andrea Russet. Celebrities who achieved fame, not primarily on Snapchat, are among the most popular Snapchat users. Examples are Ariana Grande, Kim Karadashian, Chrissy Teigen, and Kylie Jenner. Users who are especially popular on Snapchat include, for example, Chino (@turbanchino), lifestyle blogger Naomi Davis (@love.taza, who also has a large number of followers on Instagram and a popular blog), and fitness coach Neghar Fonooni (@negharfonooni). Snapchat is an important hub of influencer capitalism. There is a kind of division of labour between YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat: on YouTube, influencers focus on longer
13 www.instagram.com/lilmiquela/.
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videos, on Snapchat on very short, catchy, attention-grabbing videos, and on Instagram on aesthetically appealing images, designs, and colours. Some influencers focus on one or two of these platforms but quite a lot of them are active on all three and achieve high numbers of followers on all three.
Talent Agencies and Product Placements YouTubers, Snapchatters, and Instagrammers become famous because of their co-operations with talent agencies such as Creative Artists Agency, WME, ICM Partners, United Talent Agency, Team 10, or Gleam Futures, and deals with media and entertainment companies such as Maker Studios/Disney Digital Networks, NBC, Fox, ABC, Disney, RTL Group, Penguin, YouTube, or Walmart. On YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, it is often hidden that videos and images are paid-for product placements or sponsored/branded content. A survey (N = 57) among YouTuber influencers showed that 65 percent had used product placement and that multichannel networks played an important role in the organisation of influencers’ brand deals, which resulted in paid-for product placements (Gerhards 2019). Famous YouTubers, Snapchatters, and Instagrammers often do not simply work for talent agencies, advertisers, and media companies, but act as capitalists themselves, developing and selling branded commodities such as cosmetics, jewellery, apps, fan merchandise, house- hold products, apps, jewellery, toys, etc. These commodities sell because the social relations between influencers and their fans have created a culture of connectedness through which influencers accumulate reputation and emotional attachment with their audiences. This online reputation translates into brand names that allow influencers who have large communities of followers to sell commodities and accumulate capital. According to Forbes magazine, the top ten YouTube stars in 2018 earned together US$ 180.5 million (Robehmed and Berg 2018). Rich YouTubers, Instagrammers, and Snapchatters are not simply a digital worker aristocracy that commodifies itself by selling ads and being paid for promoting commodities in videos and on images. Many of them are also part of the digital industry’s capitalist class. Jake Paul says about his status as capitalist:
A lot of the shit I do is business-driven. I am a marketer at the end of the day. […] Being an entrepreneur is something I am super-passionate about. […] One of my top two skills is business and just being innovative, coming up with shit, marketing it and making it appeal to a mass group of people, being able to drive sales and revenue.14
Visibility Labour In a study of followers of Instagram influencers, the anthropologist and Internet researcher Crystal Abidin (2016, 89) coins the notion of “visibility labour” for “the free labour of fol- lowers”, which consist in the use of hashtags, @mentions, user-tags, comments, answer- ing questions, tagging friends, participation in competitions, the regramming of postings,
14 www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d-z5zAvv5E, accessed on 7 October 2019.
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responding with postings to specific content, or engaging with advertorials in order “to be noticed by prolific elite users” (90). As a consequence, followers “amplify content circulation” (87). Followers of social media influencers view, click, share, like, comment, and engage in other ways with content such as videos and images, and thereby help to circulate that content and create attention for it. Influencers earn money by promoting sponsored commodities in their postings (product placement) that are either labelled as ads or not and/or by sharing ad revenues with the platform they operate on (such as the YouTube Partner Programme where users need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months in order to be able to join and earn 55 percent of the net ad revenue their content achieves15). In both cases, audiences produce attention, social relations, affects, and big data that helps to advance the sales of the advertised commodities. They perform visibility labour that markets commodities to themselves and other users. Such labour is also affective and aspirational labour because users engage in it because they have the desire, fantasy, and hope to be seen and recognised by others. In influencer capitalism, not just capitalist social media platforms but also profit-making influencers, who collaborate with platforms and brands, exploit every- day users. Some fans of influencers try to become influencers themselves, but are rather pre- carious freelancers. They try to earn a living on YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat but fail to do so. Other fans do not have a career interest in social media platforms but enjoy being fans and desire recognition as such.
Multichannel Networks Further complicating influencer capitalism is the fact that many influencers work with talent agencies and multichannel networks (MCNs), such as Disney Digital Network (formerly Maker Studios), Fullscreen Media, the now defunct Style Haul and Machinima, Mediakraft Networks, Big Frame/AwesomenessTV, Kin Community, DanceOn, Brave Bison, ChannelFlip, Diagonal View, or Gleam Futures,. MCNs are often affiliated with YouTube and support influencers in promotion, management, sales, audience development, partner management, and ad organisation (Hou 2019). They typically receive a percentage share of the ad revenue influencers make (Cunningham and Craig 2019, 115). MNCs mediate between influencers, platforms, and advertisers. Influencers make profit from users’ support labour, which is affective, digital, visibility-generating, and aspirational in character. Given that it is users who create economic value, the profits that talent agencies and multichannel networks make stem from the exploitation of fan-users’ digital labour.
Influencers as Achieved and Attributed Celebrities For Chris Rojek (2001, 18), “achieved celebrities” are celebrities because of “their artistic or sporting achievements”, whereas “attributed celebrities” are “the result of the concen- trated representation of an individual as noteworthy or exceptional by cultural intermedi- aries”. Rojek does not separate these two types, but sees them as often taking on hybrid forms. Internet celebrities such as Lele Pons, PewDiePie, DanTDM, or Zoella are what Alice
15 See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851?hl=en-GB, accessed on 8 October 2019.
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Marwick (2013, 117) calls “achieved Internet celebrities”. They use social media as a tool for their “self-presentation strategy that includes creating a persona, sharing personal infor- mation about oneself, constructing intimate connections to create the illusion of friendship or closeness, acknowledging an audience and identifying them as fans, and strategically reveal- ing information to increase or maintain this audience” (117). Marwick argues that Internet celebrities commodify themselves (117). They are brands. Self-branding is “the strategic creation of an identity to be promoted and sold to others” (166). Internet influencers are not just achieved celebrities but also attributed celebrities. They would be nothing without the attention, likes, comments, and visibility that their fans and followers give them through their visibility-generating and aspirational digital labour.
Influencer Capitalism’s Commodity Logic We need to deepen the analysis of what it exactly means to sell and brand yourself and your self. A commodity is a good that is sold on a market. The commodity is, as Marx (1867, 125) writes, capitalism’s “elementary form” or cell form. This means that in capitalism, for-profit corpo- rations produce, distribute, and sell commodities in order to accumulate capital. The working class produces commodities and value that yield profit. The videos and images that influenc- ers regularly upload to YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram are not commodities. Users can access them without payment. When an influencer stars in a YouTube Red production, for which they are paid, or writes a novel published by a commercial publishing house, for which they are paid a lump sum and a certain share of the revenue, then they are wage workers who are exploited by capital. If an influencer creates fashion or other merchandise that they sell in their web shop in order to yield profit, then they are worker-capitalists, freelancers who accumulate capital and in doing so exploit themselves. It is a different matter if they operate as not-for-profit companies or form together with others a cultural co-operative, self-managed non-profit companies that are collectively owned and democratically controlled by the workers. But what is the status of the commodity in the case of content that yields profit for an influencer through advertising revenue sharing or product placement? Without the video or images that the influencer uploads to YouTube, Snapchat, or Instagram, no profit could be made. But the content itself is not a commodity. It is what Marx (1885) calls fixed constant capital. Fixed constant capital is a means of production that “helps to fashion” commodi- ties and “continues to perform the same function over a shorter or longer period, in a series of repeated labour processes” (237). “Examples of this are factory buildings, machines, etc. – in short, everything that we collect together under the description means of labour” (237). Fixed constant capital “never leave[s] the production sphere” (237). Influencers’ portfolios of content expand, but as a whole they constitute a profile of channel that stays fixed in the social media production process for a longer time in order to attract users who produce attention and engage with the content. Fixed capital transfers some value to the sold commodity but this transfer does not create new value. Influencers are creators of creative means of online production that their followers consume and use in order to create attention and engagement that is sold to advertisers. Ad and product placement are impor- tant sources of income for many Internet celebrities who have a large number of followers. Such influencers are capitalists who, together with platforms, exploit users. Users’ attention
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is the commodity sold in aggregated form to advertisers. Influencers’ content that is paired with ads or product placements and users’ activities and the big data it generates act as fixed capital that enables the attention commodity. Influencers are branding their selves, which means that they practise strategies of presenting themselves as reputable consumer goods to the audience in order to attract the latter’s desires, attention, support, likes, and engagement so that the audience can be sold as commodity to advertisers and purchase merchandising goods.
Influencer’s Complex and Hybrid Class Status and the Influencer Industry as Culture Industry Influencers often have a complex and hybrid class status. They are entrepreneurs of the self who brand their self in order to achieve income in a variety of ways. Potentially, they are cap- italists, worker-capitalists (freelancers), and wage workers. What class status an influencer has depends on the mix of activities, strategies, and platforms they use. In the famous chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (2002, 94–136) coined the notion of the “culture industry” for the subsumption of culture under the commodity form and the profit-making activities of capitalist corpora- tions. In the light of the rise of twentieth-century consumer capitalism, ever more aspects of culture became subsumed under the logic of the commodity, capital, exchange value, and profit. The culture industry is the process where “use value in the reception of cultural assets is being replaced by exchange value” (128). Corporations in the cultural sector that aim to accumulate profit do not care about individuals as humans and citizens; they merely see them and reduce them to their status as consumers, shoppers, and workers. “Industry is interested in human beings only as its customers and employees and has in fact reduced humanity as a whole, like each of its elements, to this exhaustive formula” (118). The phenomena of social media influencers and influencer capitalism show that social media platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram that allow users to create, share, like, and comment on audio-visual content such as images and videos and to build com- munities of followers around such channels and profiles, are fully immersed into and are a constitutive part of twenty-first-century capitalism’s culture industry. The influencer industry is the culture industry operating at the content level of social media platforms. Social media creators who want to earn a living and become famous and rich on Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have a complex class status, often constituting hybrids of workers, freelancers, and capitalists. Only a few of them manage to create successful, highly profitable capitalist businesses that make them rich. Many of them perform unpaid, low-paid, or precarious brand and commodity promotion labour. Commodity logic in the form of the branding of the self, influencers’ constant propagation of the logic of commodity consumption, fan audiences’ attention as commodity, the constant presentation of hidden and visible advertisements in the form of product placement and targeted ads, and the promotion of a range of influencer commodities (books, training courses, toys, fashion, fan merchandise, etc.) constitute key aspects of influencer capitalism’s culture industry. The next section discusses the ideological aspects of influencer capitalism.
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7.3 INFLUENCER CAPITALISM’S IDEOLOGY The Idealisation of Influencer Capitalism Stuart Cunningham and David Craig are two cultural analysts who, in the book Social Media Entertainment (2019), provide an analysis of the social media industry, for which they have interviewed many industry leaders. Cunningham and Craig (2019, 12) acknowledge that scholars such as Duffy (2017) and Abidin (2016) have shown that trying to earn a living as a YouTube, Snapchat, or Instagram influencer often means precarious creator labour, but they claim that “such conditions can still near favourable comparison with the average aspirant in Hollywood, an industry notorious for requiring years of underpaid dues paying and appren- ticeship in toxic and demanding positions”. The problem is that it is cynical and it doesn’t help proletarianised cultural workers to be told that precarity in one cultural industry sector is less alienating than precarity in another one. YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram influencers, who have millions of followers, are not ordinary, common, everyday users, but part of a small social media elite that fully engages in and lives neoliberal digital culture. By presenting a range of examples of social media creators’ focus on cultural politics, Cunningham and Craig (2019, chapter 5) argue that influencers are not unpolitical. The problem is that the two authors restrict the discussion to identity politics without once mentioning the question of the possibilities and limits of critiques of corporations, class, and capitalism on Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. Identity politics, including the focus on green consumption, vegan lifestyle, and ethical/sustainable capitalism, encourage indi- viduals to celebrate and market certain lifestyles and brands, which means that sponsors paying for product placement can be found. In contrast, anti-capitalist, socialist influencers would have problems attracting corporate sponsors and would betray their socialist values if they accepted money from those they are criticising. Socialist vlogging is likely to face limits on corporate social media because it does not fit into the scheme of the celebration of brands, individualism, consumerism, and neoliberalism. When Lauren Singer presents “zero waste skincare and makeup”16 on her YouTube channel “Trash is for Tossers”, she can certainly find sponsors who pay her for marketing their green commodities. Such vid- eos are not a form of cultural politics but rather the promotion of a particular type of capi- talist corporation, i.e. a celebration of capitalism. Cunningham and Craig conducted 150 interviews, predominantly with managers but also with 33 creators. Although Cultural Studies sees culture as ordinary and everyday, and is inter- ested in the analysis of ordinary life (Williams 1958), Cunningham and Craig focused almost exclusively on creators who have a high number of followers, such as Brent Rivera and Tati Westbrook, who have around 10 million followers on YouTube. The interviewed creators are what the authors call “enterprising creators” (11, 79), “creator entrepreneurs” (12), or “online creator entrepreneurs” (220). The problem is that ordinary users who try to earn a living on YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, and are proletarianised creators, are missing. The focus of Cunningham and Craig is not on ordinary online culture but on uncommon, extraordinary individuals who make up the elite of YouTubers, Snapchatters, and Instagrammers, with an aura and appearance of everydayness that makes them appear to be just a girl or guy from
16 See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1XFlrK7488
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next-door. Such accounts create the false impression that YouTube and Instagram are spaces of unlimited opportunities where everyone can become famous.
Can You Become Famous on Instagram and YouTube? Let us have a look at some of the claims we can find in popular culture about how to become a famous Instagram or YouTube star. Amber Venz Box, an influencer with 100,000 followers on Instagram and CEO of reward- Style, gives the following tips in Cosmopolitan to users who want to become Instagram- famous:
1. Create valuable content: […] What’s important is ensuring that you’re creating something which is of interest to your followers and provides value to them. What can you teach them? 2. Post consistently […] 3. Build a commu- nity […] 4. Be open to change (and new platforms) […] 5. […] Be sure you are diversifying your business, working with multiple revenue streams and never become satisfied. (Baxter-Wright 2018)
In Teen Vogue, food Instagrammers Gloria Chin, Tiffany Lopinsky, Brittany DiCapua, and Jerrelle Guy shared tips on what “made them so successful”:
Be passionate about your account. […] Give your account individuality [..] Post the food you (and everyone) enjoy […] Develop a ‘brand’: This goes along the lines of individuality. Make your account different than the others by making a logo or something that marks your content as your own […] Stay engaged with your followers and other accounts […] Post just the right amount. (Spoon U 2017)
Seventeen magazine featured a post about Instagrammer Jen Selter’s tips of how to “get more followers on Instagram in no time”. Selter has 13 million followers on Instagram.
Be True to Yourself. “You are only going to create a community of followers if you are posting about things you truly love and remain genuine”, said Jen. […] “Do what you love and share it with the world”, she said. “Like-minded people will then follow!” […] Post Every Day […] Know Your Stuff. […] Jen: “Make yourself an expert in your field! […] Get creative!” […] Stay Positive. (Twersky 2019)
All of these statements have to do with ideology. Let us briefly recount what ideology is all about (see also section 1.3 “What is Critical Theory?” in Chapter 1). An ideology is a claim that does not correspond to reality, and distorts, manipulates, or dissimulates reality in order to advance partial interests that benefit from exploitation and domination. There are several reasons why such accounts are ideological and constitutive of influ- encer capitalism as ideology:
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